Sharing Screens

Zoom allows you to share your computer screen with all participants in a meeting. 

• Both hosts and participants can screen share by selecting the Share Screen  icon;
• Participants can share from their desktop, tablet and mobile devices;
• Participants can share their screen without needing to request permission from the host;
• The host can, when needed, prevent participants from accessing screen share.

In the window where you select which screen to share there are a couple of additional options that appear at the bottom of the screen.

• Share Computer Sound: If you check this option, any sound played by your computer will be shared in the meeting.
• Optimize for full-screen video clip: Check this if you will be sharing a video clip in full-screen mode. Do not check this otherwise, as it may cause the shared screen to be blurry.

After participants share their screen Zoom will automatically switch to full screen to optimize the shared screen view. To leave full-screen you can press the Esc  key. 

You can disable automatic full screen in your desktop client settings: Enter full screen automatically when a participant shares the screen.

As noted above, when you start sharing your screen, Zoom will automatically expand to full screen, and the meeting controls will move into a menu that you can drag around your screen. The participant pane and the chat will close but can be re-opened. 

There are two "parts" to the menu--a visible section, and a hidden section that is accessible through the "more" buttons. The visible section includes:

• Mute/Unmute: Mute or unmute your microphone.
• Start/Stop Video: Start or stop your in-meeting video.
• Participants: View or manage the participants (if the host).
• Polling: Poll participants if enabled.
• New Share: Start a new screen share. You will be prompted to select which screen you want to share again.
• Pause Share: Pause your current shared screen.
• Annotate: Display annotation tools for drawing, adding text, etc.

The "More..." section includes other Zoom controls. To access these controls, hover over more for additional options.

• Chat: Open the chat window.
• Record to the Cloud: Start recording to the cloud. This option appears because the recording setting is set to record in the cloud.
• Meeting Info: Provides information about the meeting, allows you to invite participants, and update meeting settings.
• Allow/Disable participants annotation: Allow or prevent the participants from annotating on your shared screen.
• Show/Hide Names of Annotators: Show or hide the participants' name when they are annotating on a screen share. If set to show, the participant's name will briefly display beside their annotation.
• Hide Meeting Controls: Will hide the Zoom main menu bar. Press ESC to show it.
• Optimize Share for Clip:  Start optimizing for a video clip.
  Note: Do not enable this setting if you are not sharing a full-screen video clip, as it will blur your screen share.
• End Meeting:  Leave the meeting or end the meeting for all participants.

If you are using a dual monitor set-up, you can turn on the Use Dual Monitors  feature to see the screen sharing on one monitor and participants on the second.

Note: On Mac OS 10.15 Catalina, you need to allow Zoom access to screen recording to share your screen. You can do this in your System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Screen Recording.